


I was so much younger yesterday

by honeywreath



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009/2010 phan mostly, M/M, based on starving by hailee steinfeld, but general chaos back and forth the timeline, dan has doubts about his decisions, the author has doubts about posting this, what a match
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-11-29 06:57:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18219749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeywreath/pseuds/honeywreath
Summary: Dan doesn't have a best friend for the first 18 years of his life. Then, he does.





	I was so much younger yesterday

_**You know just what to say** _  
_**Shit, that scares me, I should just walk away**_  
_**But I can't move my feet**_

 

Dan's still slightly buzzed when he stumbles back up into his room.

It's been a long day, a good day but also draining, tiring in a way that makes his limbs honey thick when they move.

His house, where his parents have long gone to bed, his little brother possibly asleep, hopefully, is drenched in darkness and he has to squint through the dim street lights when he searches for his keys, the cold air helping a bit to bring him round to his senses.

It's mind numbingly cold and he rubs his fingers over his knuckles for warmth.

He's left his friends on a park bench laughing into the night, beer bottles strewn on the grass like a safety hazard waiting to happen and Dan had dropped his own into a trash can to feel just a little bit better about himself when he hears the clang.

He walked home with a red face and tipsy steps. It's not the safest thing to do.

His mum wouldn't approve that's for sure, but he's worn her down to the occasional huff at his antics until he builds them up enough for her to burst. 

He tries to be better, he promises himself, finding that even if all she says isn't fair, all he says back or does isn't either, and he's promised himself he'll try but he's been fucking up his own vows as he goes, the guilt ever growing as is his is anger at himself and this caged feeling that never seems to leave. His anger at the dark circles under his own eyes, how the sleep comes only at inconvenient times, how his mates are moving beyond school and he's still stuck with no direction, every second to their departure seeming like a ticking clock. The red end is an explosion where this false sense of security shatters and he'll have to face that he's the only one with legs knee deep in a swamp of his own indecisiveness while people he knows swim forward. He's sure he would be reminded of it every time he looks towards his parents at the dinner table.

It's a future that's not here yet but it's already suffocating him and Dan tugs at his collar, nervously sweeping a look around for anyone who might still be up but it turns out he's lucky tonight. His mum's shoes are on a side, her hand bag thrown across the sofa and she must already have gone to bed, sound asleep, tired from a long day at work. 

He's spared of her disappointed gaze then and tiptoes to his bedroom, but not before shuffling about quietly in the kitchen, successful in his search for leftover cake.

Adrian hasn't gotten to it yet and Dan grins pilling both of the slices onto his plate and filling a glass of milk to down it. Would it help evade a hangover tomorrow? Would it make him sick now? He isn't too sure. He goes along with it anyway.

It's his birthday. He deserves a treat.

 

His duvet is a comfort beyond any when he cozies up to it, a pillow pushed under his chest for closeness.

It's a bit lonely and this loneliness is the sort that laughing over beer with barely-friends-friends can't solve so Dan resorts to some pillow cuddles. 

He could've had Emma here with him tonight. He doesn't.

Her tugging on his arm had been insistent and her eyes had been pleading for him to ever act like he cares for her enough to pull his own head out of his arse. All he did though is kiss her with a promise to meet up soon, so many promises lately he's stopped keeping track and watches her call a cab.

When she's leaving, he's leaning on a tree, ignoring a stupid comment some idiot makes about "Howell missing up on some ass."

He could've directed the anger bubbling inside him but he doesn't. He just watches her ears go pink and her eyes blink rapidly twice when she sits, giving him a muted wave. He waves back with half the energy, a sinking feeling inside him.

He watches the headlights dim out before throwing away his own beer, hearing the satisfying clang that chips away on the surface of his guilt.

He doesn't walk her home, to his or her own and now he's here alone in his room craving a hug. 

Dan closes his eyes with a deep sigh. He knows he's been shit, that he's been running from her. He knows, she knows, how he cringes away from closeness, ignores her calls until he's completely touch starved or needy and how he doesn't spoon her, kiss her neck till she's giggling and batting at him just because it fills up his chest anymore.

He's so fucking selfish and she deserves better than that.

The guilt eats at him and he wants to push it away, like the texts lighting up his phone that he doesn't want to read. 

He turns it off and pulls open his laptop for an escape. It's all he feels safe with lately, no need to prove himself to anyone, no need for acting a certain way or providing things he can't. No need to pretend to care when he can't find it in himself to, and feel sick or evil because of it. His whole mind turns numb when he thinks. He doesn't know why he's so messed up.

He hates how he wants to shut everything out, ruin everything he has just because his head is too heavy for him to hold, full of thoughts that wrestle out of nowhere to suck his soul and that he can't reach to tug at and rip away.

He's so very tired and he just wants to watch mindless entertainment and eat some cake.

You don't turn 18 everyday.

His go to then is YouTube, a fun little place for creative people and well, their cats, it has been for the last few months and every time he clicks out he wonders how easy it would be to just pop up a camera himself and make one, a video. His stomach twists nervously at the thought though, and it's another thing to commit to so he pushes it down with everything else, wraps it up and away.

It's much nicer to not hold himself in his own court of accountability and to cover himself in as many layers possible as if the blankets would shield him from the world outside, curl up behind the dimmed brightness of his laptop to pass away the time, the ticking more of a comfort and less of a distress if he's distracted enough. 

Dan's eye catches on an update then.

A small bright square of vibrant purple and yellow stars with a crafted little black figure on it and his chest suddenly lighter.

There's also a guy making a distressed face, thick black hair and a sharp jawline.

If anything's a birthday present it's this and it's Phil and Dan can feel himself grinning as he reads 'interactive' in the title. He settles himself back into the pillow, pulling the warm butt of his laptop onto his stomach and smiles because Phil has whiskers on his face in the thumbnail, which for some reason is adorable, and he's created yet another quirky little world Dan can get lost in for a few minutes, can rip himself away from reality.

The dramatic cuts and Phil's little interjections, his head popping up close to the camera, impossible blue eyes unblinking and long arms so very pale in Dan's view.

It just makes something jump in his chest and going about the quest is fun, eyes lingering on the flip of Phil's black hair onto one eye, his grin where both the sides of his lips lift up, twitching at the corners. Dan's enchanted, tethered to the alternate reality Phil has made sitting in his room in a red shirt and with some editing software. 

Phil inspires him. He makes it look so easy to be something, to do something. He carves stories in thin air, creates his own little movies without a crew, any expensive equipment, any professional help and he makes Dan believe he can do it too. In his own way, with his own touch, yet Dan doesn't know where to start, how to start and if he should in the first place. For now, he can only sit in awe.

Sit behind a lit up screen at 3 am, smiling blindly at Phil smirking at the camera, his lips impossibly pink.

He's maybe just a little bit in love; with the creative process of course.

He tells Phil as much, hopes his words reach with a stuttery fear of something monumental in his heart, feeling tipsier than he had been stumbling inside his home, though he's definitely sober and so very warm, the cake settled full in his belly and the night turned into early dawn.

Phil waves, a twinkle in his eyes, mischief on his face and Dan's aching to chase it, catch it like a butterfly fluttering out of reach, right into the fade of the end screen.

He's left sitting there a little lost when it cuts to black.

A second later though, he clicks the first link again and starts the whole adventure back.

He's got more routes to explore.

Phil's face reappears, peering into the camera.

Dan's immersed in play plots and pink lips yet again.

 

**_"@amazingphil i think i have a crush on you"_**

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
 

 ** _Oh I didn't know that I was starving till I tasted you_ **  
**_Don't need no butterflies when you give me the whole damn zoo_ **  
**_By the way, by the way, you do things to my body_ **

 

He's sitting in Phil's room, on a blue green duvet, fiddling with his phone, a minty flavour in his mouth and he can hear the shower running.

He's realizing with every skip in his heart though, that he is in fact, _sitting in Phil's room_ , the room he's watched amazingphil videos being made in, all through the last year.

It's the room he's first seen Phil pop up in and materialize in, the room Phil’s sat in watching him play guitar on the other side, where he’s stared back through a shitty skype connection to pixelate his shit-eating grin, smacking a deep fondness right into Dan's chest for his messed up sleepy hair and his urgency to pick up even when Dan calls at the most ridiculous of times.

It's the room where Phil's laugh has bubbled up high pitched, where Dan has witnessed his naked pale back in full view when he rolls over flustered, pushing his face into his pillow at something Dan has said, something yet again flirty and not very subtle and Phil mumbles "Dan!" with a throaty groan rising in his chest.

It makes Dan grin, makes him think of even more less than innocent things. 

 

Dan who, after watching everything Phil has ever uploaded, knows more now of Phil than he did of amazingphil and that in itself is amazing to him.

He knows how Phil’s lips part open when he sleeps, breathing out slow, shallow, and even though Dan can’t feel the breath on his cheek, miles apart and just a wifi connection in between he can definitely imagine it. He knows the faint smattering of hair on Phil’s chest even if he doesn’t know how it would feel below his palms yet, and knows the way he smiles so genuine and big when Dan asks after Kath and how Phil listens so attentively to everything that Dan has to say, even if he runs it word over word, rambling and jumping from topic to topic.

No one’s ever caught up like that before, they usually just shut him up but Phil listens with his chin on his arm and droopy eyes shinning brightly in the dim screen light till he drifts off.

 

Dan doesn't know when, but he’s stopped being amazingphil and became just Phil. The Phil Dan called when he broke up with Emma, with snot down his face, regretting all his life choices except those kind blue eyes and these late nights he spends looking at them, even if everything else feels like it’s going to shit.

The Phil, today, Dan had pulled into a kiss on top of Manchester in the rickety cab of a Ferris wheel, who had been glancing at his lips every time he bit into them till Dan couldn't hold himself back anymore. His eyes had widened a fraction, as if he couldn’t believe Dan’s flirting behind a little webcam could descend so vibrantly into real life, blushing such a pretty pink when Dan had pulled back from the gentle peck yet made grabby hands at Dan’s collar, pulling him closer. The knots coiling tight in Dan had melted into the sweet taste of Phil's lips, a red October sun setting behind them, breaths hot against the smiles that kept their teeth clacking.

Dan had laughed into Phil's cheek when they had tried again, their noses bumping awkwardly.

He knows this Phil, this Phil who had pulled him by the hand excitedly and Dan's mouth ached from smiling more than his fingers did from being held onto too tightly for too long, who had blushed deep behind his coffee cup when Dan had stared at him unabashed, a grin on his face and Phil couldn't help leaning forward and hiding into his shoulder. Phil, who had to bite onto his knuckles to hold back his laughter on the bus when Dan mimicked the bus driver's thick accent. The Phil who's fingers felt like feathers on his cheek, who held him so very carefully, like he was precious.

 

 

He also knows that all he wants now is to kiss Phil again, not just little pecks but harder than he did the day before.

He's buzzed on affection, a little high on how lovely it is to just exist then. 

Dan's heart is full from it.

 

It's a beautiful impossibility to him, this sharing of butterflies with Phil. Dan intends to bask in it, in the way Phil's eyes never leave his face, how they keep gravitating towards him again and again and Dan really can't pull his own gaze away either. He had once wanted to drown inside the ocean of them but seeing himself live in their depths is a far greater wonder, a much more purer, more incredible joy.

He giggles and smacks at Phil's arm when there's suddenly a phone in his face and Phil's gushing over how cute he looks, the horrid close up angle of his nose and eyes the only thing visible on the photo he's sneaked and when Dan protests Phil takes a quick look around and kisses his cheek to shut him up.

It does the job well.

Phil's then taken him on a trip, around Manchester, taking more pictures, of each other and of the sights they see and mostly the sight they see is each other anyway, so it all comes round and they find themselves laughing over the most mundane of things because it's so easy to be happy.

Phil leads them to the sky bar, tugging him in and calming his nerves with his own anxious yet excited smile because they're both in ratty jeans and everyone just seems so posh but Dan forgets to be anxious when Phil smiles at him like that, shy and lit up with the gorgeous view behind them, when he sees him splurging on expensive cocktails and food just for Dan and despite his own protests Dan feels thoroughly wooed.

They play footsie under the table, ankles interlocking and Phil's fingers, soft and a little hesitant, reach over to overlap the corners of his own. 

Dan can't help how he enamored he looks then.

 

The tiredness is bone deep when they head home after walking around all day. Dan's still a little in awe when he follows Phil into the Lester abode, vacant of all other residents but Phil and his guest and the fact that it is, flutters in Dan's stomach in a strange anxious elation. He knows Phil, he knows the quirky little bedroom they come to, Dan's bag finding it's place at a corner and he knows that this is what he wants, who he wants, where he wants to be, but he thought he knew it before, with Emma too.

He's a little scared if this won't end any differently.

He's a little scared and He doesn't want to give so much of his being just for it to come back to more crying, more heartache, more pain, to lead to the same helplessness and disconnect but he can't stay away, not from Phil. It's moth to a flame, as cheesy as it sounds but Dan feels it.

He gets evidence of this fearless desperation as soon as Phil turns around and gives him a blinding smile, lips so pink and soft in his sight as Dan's come to know them to be, then and now again because suddenly he has his fingers clenched on Phil's collar, he has Phil's back against the wall.

Phil gives a small, surprised 'oomf' before he melts into Dan, lets Dan's boiling emotions take the lead. 

Phil is nothing if not gentle, open and so very trusting. 

 

The rest of the night is kissing and talking and with blanket warmed, intertwined limbs, cuddling in the closest of senses and so much more kissing. It's as if both of them are needy for a taste of the other, words, lips, hands and laughs and Dan's drinking it all in as though he's been parched.

Skype and five hour Phone calls are just not the same, never the same.

Never again.

 

They film a video the next morning, still hung up on inhaling every breath of distance till they breathe will a single set of lungs and Dan's so very happy to indulge in having all of Phil in his lap, his doubts erased by those eyes he's been chasing through screens, hands finally on warm, pink skin. Phil's soft to touch, to hold, to hug, to taste with Dan's face in his neck and Phil's giggle in his ear.

The q&a requires some integrity, Dan declares and pushes Phil away when he sifts through the mostly unusable material. Dan's scribbles the questions onto a tiny page, maybe adds one or two in himself with a bit of glee over this newfound, self-granted right that he knows Phil wouldn't mind giving him, his handwriting horrendous as ever while he uses his knee as a makeshift table and Phil hangs by, giggling over the stretch of his arm, pouting over how unfair it is that he let Dan maintain his secrecy at the cost of their spooning.

Dan pretends to be exasperated, biting the smile off himself by pulling in his own bottom lip and snatching the paper away from Phil's prying eyes. Phil's got his head ducked, evil brewing in his brain and he laughs loudly at Dan's annoyed expression when he dupes him with a tickle, taking the paper anyway and Dan's too fond to even feel mad.

Maybe he does take revenge by pinning Phil down, sitting on his thighs, grabbing his wrists and tickling him relentless. They end up kissing some more.

Breathless, red faced, aching stomachs but with the best kind of pain. 

Dan doesn't want to wake up because surely this is a dream.

Phil's palm on his cheek reminds him it's not.

 

It's not long after that they're both filming, giggling over their own nonsense, trying so hard to be serious but failing, twin grins a constant, face covered in sharpie smudges and pillows strewn all across the bedroom floor from when they inevitably roll on each other like actual cats.

"It's the sharpie fumes." Dan gasps, eyes crinkled at Phil on his chest as he climbs over from the floor right onto Dan. Phil simply licks his nose. Dan laughs at his disgusted face when he scrunches up.

Dan can't keep his eyes off Phil, can't keep himself from being more than vaguely suggestive. He also needs a new body to put some of his happiness in because it's overflowing, it's seeping out of him and he can't keep his facial muscles to cooperate, to make up any other facade.

He doesn't want to and he wants Phil to know how he feels because it's bursting through his veins and making his heart go at a rabbit pace. He schools his expression to say it,

"This is the most fun I've ever had."

Phil's no good either as he just jumps him, tackles him down to the weird neon green carpet and Dan falls so easily, a small 'oh' welcoming the pleasant weight atop him, the air punched out his lungs, some by the surprise impact and the rest with how Phil stares down at him, half lidded eyes; a goofy, dumb expression of open adoration. Dan wants it to dissolve him into the green fluff below.

It's impossibly cute how Phil just stares at him with his head tilted, incredibly flustering yet endearing to be looked at with such sincere affection, tickling all through Dan's spine and he grins despite himself only for Phil's tongue to poke out, his smile stretching before his head drops into Dan's shoulder, giggling against his skin. Dan's palms come up to hold him by the waist.

He feels full. 

He feels so very full, so very happy.

 

He also feels itchy later when finds out the type of lube he's allergic to, pinacolada apparently, not soon after the giggling and the messy kissing while rolling around by Phil's bed and Phil's so sheepish and apologetic and Dan's just laughing at how terrified he is rather than being concerned for the fading red of his dick after he washes it off.

He also learns how skimming a thumb over Phil's nipple makes his back arch off the sofa that they've dirtied more than a simple cloth can handle, learns that Phil likes to bite when he comes, likes to hug after and that Dan is maybe falling in love again but it's not as scary now. It only makes the doubt fade faster, the happiness grow and the knowledge of something firm taking root in his heart become evident.

 

Though, Dan finds them switching to cherry then, like later from buffy to pixar when Phil gives in on his insistence for wall-e, feeding him burnt pizza and toast because it's another month and then another passed by, late December and they cry, they laugh, huffing through teary faces, wet kisses and it's just such a warm weight to have Phil on his shoulder, so calming to rest his head on top of fluffy black hair that tickles under his nose. 

Phil is what Dan's been craving when he sleeps alone, when he pushes a pillow under his chest, between his arms to hug and when he sees his phone light up and actually scrambles to reply.

 

Phil's what Dan falls into when he feels he can't fall anymore, when he feels like he's below everyone he comes across, even his own reflection and Phil is there to tell him that he's more than the last salty, teary sip in the bottom of the ocean, that he's more than the lies his brain masks in half-truths, that he's maybe more than just too hard on himself sometimes but despite it all, Dan still reaches for a pillow now and then because Phil's not always there to hold him. 

 

Maybe, that's the only reason that Dan leaves scratches when he finally can, that Dan clings and sobs out as if the orgasm bursting out of him has shot through his heart but Phil knows how to swallow him whole, how to kisses deeper into his moans, knows how to anchors him down into blissful reality with his chest, skin against skin, warmth of his heartbeat fast over Dan's own, his panting breath music to Dan's ears.

Phil isn't always there to hold but when he is Dan finds it too hard to let go.

 

It's why his eyes crack open in the pleasant haze that he finds himself in afterwards, Phil slipping out of his arms when they're disgustingly crusty with drying fluids and Umma Thurman is glaring at him.

Phil clambers over, his long limbs like those of a baby deer, precious as ever and wipes the cum off their chests with Dan's discarded pants.

Dan's about to grab him into a cuddle when he notices again, her expression, which is just so slandered that he laughs loudly, a booming scratchy sound after Phil's turned his throat useless and it's soon that Phil joins him, catching on with both his words and his eyes.

"I'm sure she liked what she saw Dan." He teases with a failed wink and Dan fakes a gag.

"Oh shush, i know you liked it too." Phil giggles and gets a pillow in his face.

He still gets up and closes the door for some privacy, crawling back into the space Dan leaves for him to complete, fitting so easily into Dan's arms. 

 

Dan's helpless when pillows stop being an alternate puzzle piece.  

He needs beard scratches on his chest and cold yeti feet.

 

**_"Umma thurman just watched me have sex"_ **

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
  
**_Emotional earthquake, bring on disaster_ **  
**_You hit me head-on, got me weak in my knees_ **  
**_Yeah, something inside me's changed_ **

 

Dan's not the only one stalking his way into Phil's life.

He coughs.

Stalking is a bit harsh of a term to use, maybe dedicated following, is better? and boy does Phil have a massive dedicated following. 

He's never been good at jealousy as it is. It burns through his guts hot and strong with an urge to incinerate the cause of his wrath.

He also has his own insecurities eating at him, the shortcomings he had with Emma, with his own family, his own inability to function properly and fling himself into a self destructive slump is a cause for constant anxiety, especially when there's a bunch of handsome, fitter guys flirting with and at Phil, not a single thread of self-preservation or shyness in sight.

It's a bubbling anger Dan doesn't contain and does direct.

Sometimes, it's not anger, rather he's amused when he calls them out, other times he's not. He's staking a very visual claim at Phil and it's not just verbal warnings on twitter but also the hickey on Phil's neck, large and high enough to not be hidden by a collar and when comments point it out, he hints at being his own handiwork. Dan feels a primal satisfaction when Phil posts a selfie titled milk and everyone's quick to assume that the white liquid is something else dripping down his chin, quick to suggest that it's linked to Dan and how Phil is Dan's and Dan is Phil's, even if in jest, even if the flirts line up in comments below.

He doesn't know why Phil doesn't scold him like Emma did, when his jealousy seemed to leak like an oil spill, right onto her friendships, he doesn't get it because she was right and so is Phil when he snorts at how ridiculous Dan is but he doesn't shout or fight, he seems to bask in it. A smug expression as if Dan's caveman possessive urges are the hottest thing Phil can think of.

It's not the healthiest kink to have and not the the sort of attitude Dan wants to have so he tries his best to get a grip.

He knows Phil's not going anywhere and no matter what fit lad strolls into the picture with biceps to drool for and blonde hair trapping sunlight itself, it's his own lanky body Phil would rather curl up into, bony and jagged, his curly brown hair that won't go flat even after he flat irons it to death that Phil would roll on his fingers and tug at, his own chapped, dry lips that Phil would kiss, lick along not unlike a kitten with a teasing smirk because if Dan won't buy a lip balm Phil should be allowed to help and Dan doesn't have the heart to correct him and his sometimes weird, dumb logistics. He simply heaves out in amusement, rolls his eyes and kisses Phil more.

He can.

It's just the fear of not knowing how long he'll be allowed to or when will his inevitable fuck ups make Phil realize how much better he could do, that eat at him. He snarks at a celebrity they interview for the BBC because he didn't want him dreaming of Phil in saunas and Phil is gasping against his mouth minutes later in a supply closet not far off.

It might be the furry thing.

Yet it's a randomly reemerging surfer from Phil's old friend list that warrants Dan to snub in a gaming video, put a dangerous, less than platonic hand on Phil's lower back for anyone on the airport to see. It's something that may have put them at risk, something he mumbles a sorry for later and Phil just pats his head with a dog joke, refraining from adding to his guilt.

Phil doesn't need to make him re-assess himself then, his own internal monologue enough of a lesson, but he doesn't need to calm his moments of irrational envy either, his calm lies in how that same palm has stuck to the same place protectively for years, caressing softly in bed, on stages with a fiery pride and has helped Phil calm down during set backs, concerned not jealous then though and he can drag it back to whiskered faces and spooky nights, to Halloween years ago to with brown furry wraps on his wrists, round bear ears on his head and Phil sporting whiskers with cat ears headband on the bus. 

Dan was younger then, more possessive and jealous, more wary of how easily Phil had slipped into his life and how easily he could slip away just the same, maybe even if for the night and how Dan would rather have no company at all if not Phil's. He would rather spend all his night with a palm warm against Phil's lower back, an arm around his waist than watching him stumble and laugh onto a stranger's shoulder.

Dan finds that he is tugging Phil away from crowds and crowding him into small spaces where they can kiss without an audience, that he's fixating of drinking up all of Phil's attention himself, greedy to hear Phil's lips read out his name and for Phil's lit up eyes to smile to crinkle at what Dan says.

He feels overwhelmingly selfish with his need to make a world of their own in this sea of people but maybe Phil thinks the same and maybe Phil is the one leading him away from everyone else when they pile their bags full of salty junk food and hide behind a fountain, cool water sprinkling the back of their necks, away from the noise and closer to the stars, closer than they were on the bus, heads on shoulders, hands intertwined, thighs pressed together sitting where they are. 

Dan looks away from the night sky to Phil and it doesn't catch him off guard that Phil is already looking at him, this mutual gravity between them as if written in the stars. He has an ethereal glow to his Voldemort white skin that Dan teases him for and he's so very pale and pink from the cold and he is so very warm from inside out when he takes Dan's hand in his own, has not even a single second of hesitation to offer when Dan suggests for them to go home.

Home is wherever Phil is, where he can kiss him without nooks and corners, whether it's a blue-green duvet in Rossendale, years later the backroom of a shared tour bus or a hotel room in Japan where Phil's cough is resounding and Dan's concerned palms push him back, gently laying him on the bed with a kiss on his sweaty forehead.

Home is just a vision, trapped in a screen when Dan is younger, hair flopping into his eyes and Phil's face only known in pixels, his warmth only pictured in imagination without any other sense to go by.

Home is what pulls at his insides, calls out everything ugly and red and scared when Phil is not in his arms and there is someone else asking for his time and even if Dan doesn't know yet how true his instincts are he wants to be the home Phil craves too, wants to shout the words 'mine'. 

 

**_"@dudeliawesome oi he's mine"_ **

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 ** _The more that I know you, the more I want to_ **  
**_Something inside me's changed_ **  
**_I was so much younger yesterday,_**

 

Dan concludes sometimes that he's fickle.

He concludes he's just never going to be motivated enough to ever try and let something stick. He either feels that he's not enough or that something's not enough for him, and that both apply to lost past lovers, to his degree and to the way his update frequency declines with continuing consistency.

Emma had been patient, a wonder with his mood swings and constant emotional distance before it got too much for even her and he got too much for himself and now that he's read over and over a diagnosis he suspected and now that he takes pills to keep him afloat when his head fills up with cotton and suffocates him into silence he has some of the self blame reduced. He has to forgive himself at some point for how he has treated the people in his life and himself, has to forgive the people he has known for not knowing just how to be there for him, forgive, forgive them and himself and learn how to live and let go.

So, he learns that maybe he's not fickle or lazy or stubborn or everything that makes him hate himself a little more. He learns that it's something that runs deep in his nerves to leave him static and poisoned and he may not feel the confidence yet but he can definitely fight it.

He'll try.

His therapist wants him to write and he does, his journal full of ideas, of events, of thoughts about what has been, what he hopes will come to be and all that scares him, worse still is all that comes after fright, that makes him feel insignificant and makes him curl up and watch the time slip by, the clocks, the world beyond them meaningless and among all that, all good and bad that he writes, he notes that Phil is a constant.

A constant good mostly and Dan is grateful.

Despite the disregard for everything as temporary and purposeless, that feeds his destructively nihilistic approach on days that seem grey and bleak, despite his careless demeanor, his less than concerned disposition for his own life, his own career, his whole existence when the pills don't fucking work, he sits up for Phil's silent, red rimmed eyes to drink a tall cool glass of water that sloshes all the way down to his stomach and even if he flinches and curls away, even if Phil closes the door behind him, gentle and careful, Dan knows it means something to have that coolness on his tongue and to not have a dry throat.

It means something to find Phil pulling him into a tight hug when he runs himself down with anxious pacing and sobs. It means something when his body won't move and Phil has filled up a hot bath with sweet smelling bath bombs and lit up the small room with hazy candles.

It means something when he is okay and Phil's not and Dan takes a call that Phil tried to pretend he forgot, his thankful, relieved sigh a blanket on Dan's cold shoulders, his fingers slipping perfectly into Dan's own.

It means Phil is a constant, yes, he is.

A constant in the last decade of Dan's life through the good of it and the bad of it and has been and will be still, a constantly surprising man and he makes Dan howl when he laughs out deep and loud because 'viscosity' is just not the same concept to Phil as it is to Dan and neither is 'breaking of the sound barrier'.

Phil's mind is a maze of 'lateral thinking' and Dan is an avid listener to his occasional insights when he himself is lost in a rant. Phil never shuts him up with annoyance and when he does want Dan to shut up he kisses it out of him, cheeky and begging for a good revenge snog to take care of that smirk, all very undignified and under handed.

Dan can't wipe away that stupid, dimpled smile off his own face that only grows deeper when Phil names his declared deformity 'Derek' and takes to poking at it.

It's happened back in a Starbucks, on a red less than hygienic sofa with Dan's much fluster more than it is now. His experience with Phil's touch, his pokes, his clawing and kissing non existent then. Phil leans forward in his memory and jabs his finger in Dan's cheek.

Dan's taken off guard. Phil grins and says 'boop' when he does.

Dan turns deep red because Phil's gushing over how cute it is.

How adorable Dan is.

It's the strangest of feelings for his chest to squeeze into itself this hard and Dan finds himself in front of a mirror back in Rawtenshall, missing a boy he's left hours away, in his tiny brown bedroom, smiling just to poke at where Phil had and groaning at himself for how giddy he is and how shy he feels and how he longs for Phil to do it again.

He doesn't have to wait long, even if it had felt like centuries then.

Phil's an annoying bugger to pull off, harassing Derek on the daily now and finding other creative ways to make Dan grin and smack at him just the same.

 

Phil is constant, Phil is changing, Phil is the one he can rely on when he feels less than human and the shoulder he can cry on when he feels just too much like one but Phil is human too and there are times Dan watches him break and those are the scariest of them all.

Phil's cheeks have tear tracks in migraines that don't leave for days and Dan turns the flat into a vampire's coffin with how he strives to keep the lights out, he gets car sick and anxious and then Dan squeezes his hand tight behind their jackets, grounding him till his circulation cuts off and when Mrs Lester falls sick one winter he rubs  Phil's back as he clings to his chest like a child and rambles on about his fears till he tires himself out and falls asleep, Dan's arms tight around him till he follows.

The thing is that Dan knows now that he was wrong when he felt scared that he won't be able to hold on.

He thinks of all he would do for Phil and there is nothing that he won't, to keep him safe, to keep him by his side, to keep him smiling like he does, eyes bleary and closed with still there sleep and morning hair sticking up into a messy quiff.

Dan would've been scared to ever feel this way once upon a time ago. It's too much power to give to someone, too high of a risk to live for a happiness not just of his own, yet here he is, smiling at the thought, a snotty nosed, flu infested Phil Lester sprawled onto his arm that's fallen asleep hours ago because Dan knows he's not in this feeling alone.

He glances and finds Phil already looking at him, finds the gravity between them from all those years ago, heads on shoulders, backs wet from a fountain and it's just the same, just the same or more, Dan isn't sure, but he's thankful because he doesn't have to rely on pillows to fill a Phil shaped hole anymore.

"Go to sleep."

He writes in kisses on Phil's cheek, his sharp jaw, his sweaty forehead and Phil obliges with a shivery sigh.

His fringe isn't there to push back now, quiffed up and cut short, more so, than in a way that Dan only saw around the house or when Phil would push it back in stress, or when Dan would play with his hair, seek out the skin over his brows for a nip, a little taste  and it's just another way that Phil has changed beside him and yet is the same.

He had a thicker mane when Dan had clicked play on his 'interactive Christmas adventure', a softer jawline and a quirkier way about him, calmer, matured now but with the same unique spark to his soul that drew Dan in with fervor. He has though, the same deep, ocean blue in his eyes and Dan knows this now, if he hadn't all those years ago, looking into them for the first time meant that he would never be the same.

18 and lonely, 18 and with so many friends, a girlfriend yet hugging a pillow to sleep.

Dan has regrets and he has forgiveness but he has none of those for the boy who left a little love note on a website, hoping to be seen yet hoping to hide, for him, for that Dan, scared yet so very brave, he just has a profound gratitude and so much pride.

Pride because growing up is such a brave thing to do in a world that doesn't always treat you kindly when you're different, in a world where sometimes your own brain makes you feel isolated and unhappy, in world where a boy watching another boy's lips move behind a screen is something to be afraid of when you're 18 and even after.

Growing up is brave and growing up beside Phil is the happiest thing Dan has been brave enough to do.

 

**_“the greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return”_ **

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Phil is warmth and kindness. He is a tight lingering hug and the hottest of kisses. He's sweeter than the pancakes and marshmallows he replaces his blood with, yet dirty as the groan he makes when Dan has him on his fingers, more wicked than the musk of sweat between them when Dan's hips are hot and grinding down on to his own.

He's a bit blind and clown footed, he's slick and suited, he's clever and quick to find solutions, He's brilliant yet he's the biggest dumb-ass Dan's ever seen in his life.

"They're calling me a morosexual because of you."

Dan accuses, with a spoon pointed towards Phil who's been guzzling down cereal milk at the speed of light.

"I reckoned it was a mutual thing."

Phil grins back, 'they' not being an uncommon referral around the house and Phil's got not the slightest shame on his face when Dan wipes away the milk on his chin with his sleeve.

When did he sign up to be a single mother? He isn't quite sure but it seems like a long ass time ago.

 

"I mean you have to admit Phil, it was obviously not going to be actually that."

Dan holds back a snort when Phil actively ignores him, pouting and takes both their bowls to the sink. Dan trails behind him not unlike a puppy, hiking his chin up on Phil's shoulder as he washes up, slowly sneaking his hands to slither under Phil's shirt, smiling self satisfactorily when Phil shivers at the cold touch on his warm skin.

"You do know that no talking dogs exist, at least yet do you?" He grins by Phil's ear and is rewarded with Phil throwing his head back onto his shoulder with a groan.

"Dannn." He complains, turning around and Dan pushes him back against the sink, enjoying how effortless it is to tease and flirt, how Phil's body is trapped in by his frame, how their chests align and eyes meet at the perfect height and how he would complain to Phil about the soapy suds on his sweater later but lets him grip on tight for now.

"If you really wanted a talking dog for your birthday all you had to do was ask." Dan drawls out by his cheek, voice low and full of mischief and Phil gapes with a blush because despite all those years sometimes Dan catches him unprepared. It's Dan's favourite thing to do among his list of ever growing favourite things to do with Phil.

"Woof." Dan grins, biting his earlobe and Phil sputters out a laugh pushing against his chest.

"You're a right menace Howell. Be careful or i just might buy you a collar." He warns playfully as he drags himself away to turn the water off and Dan smacks his butt with the towel Phil passes him to dry the bowls.

"Fucking finally."

He exclaims warranting an amused look from Phil who just shakes his head and mutters about a leash too and Phil is his darling idiot because Dan's been collared and leashed all the same for ten fucking years already. Phil has him wagging his tail from everything he does and Dan is more than happy with their stupidly cheesy kind of puppy love.

 

* * *

 

 Phil too has his endless moments, watching Dan wide, puppy eyed the same damn evening and if he had dog ears they'd be flat against his head, the imaginary tail Dan can see behind him hanging low as he lets out a whine. 

"How was i supposed to know?" He tugs at Dan's hoodie and nuzzles his face in his neck in apology, trying to market himself back into Dan's good graces.

Dan pinches at the bridge of his nose.

"Phil Lester, it's been 32 years of you gorging down boxed products-" He starts.

"I forgot!" Phil quickly interjects and maybe giggles into his skin because he knows Dan's less mad and more worried and maybe Dan _is_ a somewhat of a morosexual because he's too fond of this 6 foot long puppy in his lap when the menace has gone and made yet another mess but has his tail wagging because he knows how he has Dan wrapped effectively around it.

Dan smacks his arm.

"We didn't survived the gas leak of 2017 just to die because you set a pizza box on fire." Dan complains, poking at the sharp jut of Phil's cheek who bites Dan's collar in objection.

"I mean you keep introducing yourself as Phil to people so i don't know how effective that survival was."

Phil grins sneaking his hand to the table and stealing a pepperoni from Dan's pizza. Dan jabs his finger in Phil's ribs who squeals but not before popping the stolen bounty into his mouth and swallowing it.

"Leave my burnt pizza alone you pig." and Dan still lets him munch on the corner he breaks off because he's a sucker like that.

They're both absolute idiots sometimes but it's fine. 

Puppy love and all that.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 ** Have you ever been in love? If so with who?**

 

I'd say three times,

maybe one can't count as real love,

and then the next was,

but it wasn't happy love

and then

the third time is the best time ever

real, true, requited love

which is the best feeling in the world

<3

 

 

* * *

 

Dan's screen is lit up.

He's got his tickets booked. He's going to see Phil, _actually going to see Phil_ , just a few days from now.

His heart is racing and it feels as if it could run right out of his chest. 

Phil had been so excited to hear the news, he had been smiling up at Dan with the widest of his smiles, laughing in joy at every little plan they make and Dan had been too, aching to breathe the same air as Phil, feel the warmth of his thin hand in his own, watch his laugh mist the space between them before closing it.

Dan's in physical pain with how much he wants it, how much he wants Phil, as he curls up in his bed and hugs his pillow to his chest.

_Is he making a mistake though?_

Will Phil still like him in person? What is he going to tell his parents? Will it all blow up in his face and if it does where will he stay?

It's a whirlpool of anxiety and Dan closes his eyes against it willing for sleep to come. He doesn't want to ruin this with too much thinking.

 

Then, there's a small blooping sound and a message pops up. Dan peeks through his lashes.

 

 

 

 

> **_Phil: <3 can't wait._ **

 

 

He smiles despite himself, those two words enough to fill him up with fond and Dan presses his face in his palms, squishing himself to senses before he replies. Suddenly, nothing else matters but the feeling that stirs so strongly in his heart. He doesn't know how things would turn out yet, doesn't know if he can believe in this feeling to last, but at least he's going to try.

He can't not try, not when it comes to Phil. 

He's going to be brave.

 

 

Phil grins excitedly on the other side as he reads his reply.

 

 

 

 

 

> _**Dan: <3  me too**_

 

 

 

**( I was so much younger yesterday )**

 

 


End file.
